After the first time in basically a month where the Pels have had more than one night off between games, they are back tonight against the 12-16 Miami Heat. And big news! Our defense is no longer the 24th in the league. After a few decent defensive improvements recently culminating in the big win over OKC, our defense is now ranked 23rd! Okay, I know, not much, but small steps here guys.
Let's take a look at the Heat, since it's been a little while since we played them:
Offensive Rating: 25th
Defensive Rating: 11th
Rebounds per game: 15th
Assists per game: 23rd
Steals per game: 20th
Blocks per game: 2nd
2pt percentage: 30th
3pt percentage: 7th
Well, they're still not good, and their record reflects that. Their offense is worse than our defense, they don't rack up the assists, they don't get many steals, they aren't a great rebounding team, and they can't score inside the arc. They can, however, shoot threes at a pretty strong clip, so tonight will be a test of our perimeter defense: will it stay from the OKC game, or will we regress?
Further in our favour, Miami is injury riddled: Dragic and Waiters are still out, D Wade is listed as questionable, and Tyler Johnson is listed as probable.
Their threats haven't really changed otherwise: it's still Josh Richardson leading them in scoring, shooting basically 40% from the floor and from three to give them 18.5 points a night, Whiteside is still averaging 13/13 for them and tearing down offensive boards, and D Wade (if he plays) has still got the juice, even if he has no knees.
Meanwhile, we might get Moore back. Niko is listed as doubtful, but Moore is listed only as questionable, and since he was only out for minor strain and we've had three days off, he'll probably end up on the court. That would be huge: as much as the key guys did everything they needed to against OKC, we could have definitely done with a little more help off the bench. Jackson was great, and Miller was pretty good too, but with Diallo almost unplayable at times, we were running what was essentially a 7 man rotation. Need a little help with that tonight.
If we can play like we did against OKC against Miami, we should be sending Wade off to retire with an L in his final career game against the Pelicans, and simultaneously pull ahead of .500 for the first time in weeks!
Let's go, #DoItBig